Exclusive: Q&A With Breaking Bad's Anna Gunn

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It's been a roller coaster of a week for the cast of Breaking Bad. Okay, maybe not as much of a roller coaster as the show itself…or any given anxiety-laden episode…or scene. But still! Last weekend, the cast had its first big Comic Con panel, and on Sunday, AMC aired the premiere of the show's final season (which will be excruciatingly divided over two summers). This morning, the acclaimed watch-from-between-your-fingers drama about a science teacher-turned-meth cook claimed seven Emmy nominations, including one for Outstanding Drama Series and an Outstanding Supporting Actress nod for Anna Gunn. The riveting (and luminous) Gunn, who plays the reluctant queenpin to Bryan Cranston's ever-spiraling drug kingpin, talked to ELLE about Comic Con fans, what's to come the show's final act, and living in constant fear of her character getting the axe.

Anna Gunn: Boy, it was amazing! But we did a panel, which was our first glimpse of the whole thing, and we walked out to 4,000 fans. We all looked at each other and said, "That's about as close as we're ever going to feel to being rock stars."

ELLE: What's the craziest thing you saw there?

AG: When we were signing autographs, there was a lady who came along in a Walter White-esque green shirt and tidy whities. [Laughs] She asked Bryan [Cranston] and Vince [Gilligan, the show's creator] to sign her tighty whities. Bryan was like, "Oh, sure!" Vince was a bit more hesitant, being the Southern gentleman that he is.

ELLE: In last week's premiere, when Sklyer walked in to see Ted in a metal brace, with screws in his skull, she had, in Breaking Bad parlance, an "I'm the one who knocks" moment. She went from sad, scared, and contrite over what she did to Ted, to coolly brutal when she realizes he afraid of her.

AG: Your interpretation of it is exactly what Vince intended, and it was such subtle stuff that we really had to make sure that we got each and every beat of it right. Beat-by-beat, what's going on? In a rather short scene, Skyler comes through the door and goes from thinking, "I'm horrified. I'm mortified. I'm heartbroken that I'm responsible for this." She sees Ted sitting in this hospital bed, in this contraception, and he may never walk again. And she turns—in a very short period of time—to the part of her that says, "That's right. Don't mess with me anymore." It may not be as much of the Heisenberg transformation Walt makes, but there's definitely a little Her-senberg there.

ELLE: Sklyer seems to oscillate between being a true co-conspirator and being trapped in a nightmare of her husband's design. What end of that spectrum do you think she's leaning towards now?

AG: Last season, she was trying to control an uncontrollable situation. There were a lot of power plays between Sklyer and Walt. Ultimately, she reached the end of season four, and she knew it was all totally out of her control, that this whole thing has spun into something she couldn't even comprehend. In the eight episodes we'll watch this summer, Skyler is in a place that we've never seen her in before: she just doesn't know what to do anymore. She's been breaking bad already, but now she starts to break apart.

ELLE: And a lot of critics have rightly pointed out the "I forgive you" scene at the end of last week's premiere to be a terrifying and illuminating moment. Walt hugs Skyler, and she remains frozen and terror-stricken. What was it like when you read that scene for the first time?

AG: I remember thinking—and so many people commented on the scene in the same way—as Walt approaches, What is he going to say to her? Is he going to say, "I love you. I'm so sorry?" It looks like he might say anything, and Skyler's in such terror over what it might be. When we shot that scene, there was a lot of discussion as to where the baby is on the bed, and how Skyler moves between the baby and Walt. Then, when Walt hugs her, Skyler almost feels like his prey. Maybe if she doesn't move, maybe if she barely breathes, he won't do anything to her. It hit me so hard in the gut, and when I watched it again that night, I got those shutters and shivers all over again.

ELLE: You've shot this summer's eight episodes. Do you have any idea what's going to happen in the next—and last—eight?

AG: I don't, and if I try to predict where we'll go, I know I'm going to be wrong. I would think it's going to be a bloodbath, but you know what? Who knows if that's even true?

ELLE: You'd think there's no way that many of these characters are going to come out the other end alive…but they do every week.

AG: Exactly! And we're all prepared to go, all the time. It was the same thing in Deadwood. I never knew if I was going to last much longer, or if a stagecoach was going to come and run me down in the street. In Breaking Bad, we all wonder, what will happen to these people? And I just don't know.